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Next: 9 Feb 2027

Shrove Tuesday

Pancake day in Britain and Fat Tuesday in Sweden, with lemon and sugar and cardamom-scented semlor in whipped cream.

Photo: Pieter Brueghel the Elder, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Spices for Shrove Tuesday

Before Lent, rich foods were used up. In Britain pancakes are eaten with lemon and sugar, sometimes with a dusting of cinnamon. In Sweden, semlor, wheat buns spiced with cardamom and filled with almond paste and whipped cream, are eaten on Fettisdagen, and in Poland pΔ…czki are fried for Fat Thursday. The cardamom in Swedish baking came with Viking trade in the Middle East, and Scandinavians eat more cardamom per person than almost any other people.

The spices

CardamomIn semlor and other Swedish baking.CinnamonOn pancakes and buns.
About this page

Written by the EveryMasala desk with AI assistance. Background: "Shrove Tuesday" on Wikipedia. Customs differ from place to place and family to family. If this is your tradition and we have it wrong, tell us.

Photo credits on this page

The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.

The weekly digest

Every Monday: seven spices you may not know, what is cooking this week, and one blend explained step by step.